Indian gang-rape victim dies in Singapore hospital

Indians holding a candlelight vigil Wednesday as the victim of a brutal… (Saurabh Das / Associated…)

The 23-year-old Indian medical student who was gang-raped and beaten on a New Delhi bus two weeks ago died of organ failure at a Singapore hospital early Saturday, Singapore's Strait Times newspaper reported online.

The brutal assault on the woman triggered massive protests in the Indian capital and demands for harsher punishment of those who commit violence against women.

Six men have been arrested in the Dec. 16 attack that occurred after the woman, who has not been named, boarded what she thought was a public commuter bus. The driver and five other men on a joy ride gang-raped the woman and beat and stripped her and her companion before throwing them from the vehicle, police reported.

The woman was transported by the Indian government to the critical-care Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore on Thursday, accompanied by her parents and siblings, after undergoing three abdominal operations in New Delhi that failed to improve her condition.

India's Hindustan Times quoted Kelvin Loh, chief executive of the Singapore hospital, as saying the woman had suffered cardiac arrest before being transferred to his facility, where a team of specialists worked to stop the severe organ failure that began late Friday. She died at 4:45 a.m. Saturday local time, the hospital said in a statement.

The assault provoked thousands of New Delhi residents to throng the presidential palace last weekend, chanting "We want justice!" and "Hang them now," culminating a six-day outpouring of anger at authorities for doing too little to deter assaults on women in the Indian capital.